Work Text:
[Sent: 11:43 PM] Me: hey so you know that wrong number guy who called you last week
[Sent: 11:46 PM] Me: hey
[Sent: 11:49 PM] Me: I know you’re awake
[Received: 11:51 PM] Kenma: i’m not bailing you out if someone called the cops on you
[Sent: 11:52 PM] Me: that’s the thing though, he didn’t
[Sent: 11:52 PM] Me: he wants MORE cat facts
Kuroo's phone goes down on his cluttered computer desk, but he’s greeted by its message tone before his hands can even make it to the keyboard.
It’s way too soon for it to be Kenma, but there’s no need to wonder who the message is from.
[Received: 11:53 PM] Cat facts guy: Add subscription
The grin that sprouts on Kuroo’s face is impossible to hide.
Even after a couple of hours playing around with him like this, there hadn’t been a single moment where Kuroo stopped feeling entertained. He’s running out of cat facts, and it’s getting late, but something is keeping him from putting an end to it.
Perhaps it’s the fact that whoever he’s texting always has another way to surprise him- and that’s something that is easily addictive.
[Sent: 11:54 PM] Me: Command not recognized. Did you know that a cat has been mayor of Talkeetna, Alaska for more than a decade? Talk about a purr-suasive politician!
[Received: 11:55 PM] Cat facts guy: WOAH!!!!!!! No way???!!!
[Received: 11:55 PM] Cat facts guy: Add Subscription
The amusement bubbles in Kuroo’s chest again. He shakes his head at the change in punctuation, but he’d be lying if he said the sudden insistence didn’t catch his interest. “Okay…” he murmurs aloud as he types. “I’ll play along…”
[Sent: 11:55 PM] Me: Wanna share CatFacts with your friends? To register a new Subscription, please type “I Heart Cats!” to CatFacts from the desired recipient device!
He sets his phone down, and this time there’s a long pause- which is actually kind of unusual. Since that fateful first text a couple of hours ago, the person on the other end hadn’t left Kuroo alone- depleting almost all of his vast reserve of cat facts (he may or may not have resorted to googling a few of them, but hey, a man can only know so much about cats).
Minutes go by, and there still hasn’t been a reply. It’s only when he’s typing out another daily Cat Fact that a message buzzes into existence at the top of his screen.
“… and so then he was like, ‘I understand Bokuto-san’- which I guess is the guy’s name- ‘can be grating, but he’s actually quite fragile, so please don’t bully him’.” He turns to face Yaku before going on, piling the loose volleyball net in his arms as they clean up. “I figure, I’m doing a service. The guy- Bokuto- seems to be enjoying himself, anyway. But then he’s like–”
“It’ll be trouble if you upset him,” Yaku sharply interrupts. “Yes, I was there when you told Yamamoto yesterday. Why don’t you tell Lev again, he seemed to enjoy the story…”
Yaku has always been a spoil sport, Kuroo thinks. They’re finishing gathering up the net, and his grumbling feels as disatisfying as ever.
Then again, Kuroo has to admit that this little prank has begun to take up more of his time than is warranted. He’s been involved with many a prank before (usually surrounding one or two unfortunate underclassman) but those were easy, and had near immediate payouts.
It’s difficult to determine what exactly Kuroo is getting out of sending a stranger a cat fact every few hours.
His phone buzzes, though, and he drops the thought.
“Who are you, Kenma?!” Yaku chastises, as he sees the phone in Kuroo’s hand, but Kuroo can barely make out the scolding beneath his own raucous laughter.
[Received: 05:16 PM] Cat facts guy: Did you know that owls can rotate their necks 270 degrees??
“He’s sending me owl facts now!”
“… Are you still crank texting that guy?”
Kuroo looks up from his phone and realizes that he’s been grinning.
Again.
That sort of thing has been happening a lot lately, and the look on Kenma’s face says he’s noticed, too.
“Uh, kind of…” he says, and Kenma looks both perplexed and creeped out. It’s an expressive combination he’d only wear in the close quarters of his private room, with just Kuroo there.
“What do you mean ‘kind of’…”
“Well…” Kuroo scratches the back of his neck uncomfortably. “We recently just… started texting normally. Like, I’m not sending him cat facts anymore, we’re just talking and he knows my name–”
“You’re talking..?” Disapproval drips from Kenma’s tone- or maybe it’s just a light change from his normal voice, but even a light change is a lot for Kenma.
“Yeah. Why is that weird?”
“I don’t know…” Kenma looks back to his game again, speaking as he clicks the noisy buttons on the screen. “How did that even happen? He was okay with you crank texting him..?”
Kuroo has to think for a moment before continuing. “We never actually talked about it, I mean… he just started telling me about his day one day and how his science teacher tried to debate one of the cat facts I sent him, and I guess I just… replied.”
Saying it aloud, it’s easier to tell how weird that actually is. He doesn’t need Kenma’s punctuation to know that much, but for some reason it felt less weird when it was happening with Bo.
(He makes a mental note not to tell Kenma he started calling him by a nickname, either.)
He meets Akaashi first.
After hearing Bo talk about him so much, he feels like he knows him before he does. It’s still a real surprise to interact in person, though- Bokuto probably exaggerated too much on his personality and not enough on his looks. He halfway considers sliding a joking pick-up line into their conversation before he remembers that Akaashi is deciding whether or not he’s a creepy Internet stalker who can’t meet Bokuto.
He takes a sip of his coffee instead, enjoying the crowdless state of the cafe. He’s glad that they decided on this place- there’s only a few people here, and it’s quiet enough for conversation.
“Nekoma… I guess that explains the cat facts.”
Kuroo laughs at Akaashi’s revelation, recalling how he and a few of his classmates had spent an entire week of their first year filling up the classroom board with facts about cats to show their ‘Nekoma spirit’. “Yeah,” he says, with an air of nostalgia.
“I’m disappointed though…” Akaashi props his head up by his elbow, and the continuing absence of inflection in his tone has Kuroo on edge.
“Why?” he asks, folding his hands nervously in his lap.
“I made a bet with Bokuto when you guys started talking… and he won.”
Kuroo lets his shoulders relax a bit, with a ghost of amusement on his lips. “What was the bet?”
“I bet you were a girl.”
That thoroughly takes Kuroo aback, and he has to take a moment to keep the volume of his outburst from exceeding an ‘indoor voice’. “A girl?!” he repeats incredulously. “Why on earth would you think that?!”
Akaashi gives him a half-lidded eyebrow raise, as if to say ‘do you even have to ask’.
Kuroo furrows his own brows back and cocks his head to the side, as if to reply, ‘I do’.
“I don’t know… Maybe it’s the way you text. Maybe it’s the giant crush you have on him. Could be anything, really…”
“I don’t have a crush on him!” The way Kuroo’s cheeks heat up makes him feel like he’s a grade schooler who’s been caught passing notes about the person he likes.
But this is totally different- completely different.
“Are you sure~?” Akaashi prods. Even when teasing, his voice doesn’t lose its controlled tone. “You were awfully devoted to that prank… Wasn’t there just something about him that made you unable to put down the phone? Going so far as to text him every couple of hours, on the dot, never forgetting him- that’s the kind of patience and devotion most beautiful girls don’t have nowadays. And don’t get me started on when you two actually began talking. Let me guess, you were thinking about him all the time, weren’t you? Laughing, smiling at his messages–”
The stream of words is unexpected and flustering- more than Kuroo can handle- and all he can think of is his desire to make it stop.
“That doesn’t mean I have a crush on him!” he blurts, and instantly feels a pool of regret in his stomach. “I mean- I mean, none of that is true- like, it’s exaggerating and shit, and–”
Akaashi is smirking, and Kuroo wonders if this is karma for all the times he’s made people feel uncomfortable with his own teasing smirk.
“So you’re saying you don’t have a crush on him?” he asks, his eyes flickering behind Kuroo for a split second.
“No way!” Kuroo shakes his head.
“I see, what a shame. Let’s hope Bokuto-san isn’t disappointed. Oh, speak of the devil now.” Akaashi speaks without taking a breath in between his words, and he leans back to gesture to the cafe entrance behind Kuroo.
There’s no time to think before a tall, eccentric haired man comes bounding into the cafe. He looks around for a moment, and bursts into a sprint the instant he lays eyes on Kuroo and Akaashi.
“Kuroo!” he cries, and he practically jumps into the seated man’s arms. Kuroo laughs, notes how a few of the staff and customers give him strange looks as they embrace, but Bokuto doesn’t seem to mind, so neither does he.
“It’s nice to meet you, too,” Kuroo struggles to get the words out over the attacking hug, until he’s suddenly released, so Bokuto can pull a chair across the floor. He turns it around to sit in it backwards, and it’s something so distinctly fitting to the idea Kuroo had in his head, it makes him smile.
“Well…” Bokuto starts. He sounds nervous, and uncertain, but the excitement is impossible to conceal. He also can’t keep his eyes off of his new friend. “What were you guys talking about?”
Kuroo remembers the conversation from before with a flash, and turns to Akaashi with a desperate expression. He opens his mouth to speak but Akaashi beats him to it.
“I told him about the bet,” he subtly taunts, not meeting Kuroo’s eyes. At least, it’s better than the other things he could have said…
“Oh yeah!!” Bokuto grins twice as wide as before- that’s somehow possible- and his attention is quickly shifted to Akaashi. “You owe me a thousand yen now, don’t you?” he brags.
“And seeing as you already owed me two-thousand, I think we should just call it even.”
Bokuto chews on that bit of information for a moment, and Kuroo watches as he struggles with it.
He’s bigger than Kuroo imagined- stronger looking, with more muscles. His jaw twitches as he thinks, and Akaashi’s words keep replaying in Kuroo’s head. He can’t deny that there is a sort of charm about Bokuto.
Looking at him now, he’s rather handsome- in an unconventional sort of way.
“Ah well, whatever.” he concedes, finally. He seems to have come to the consensus that even if he can’t remember owing Akaashi money, Akaashi is probably right in remembering it that way, and he turns again to Kuroo.
Then blinks. “… What?”
Kuroo suddenly realizes how hard he’s been staring.
He suddenly realizes a lot of other things, too.
“Shit.” is the only word that he can manage to push out.
And then he laughs at his own flustered idiocy. Maybe Akaashi thinking he was a schoolgirl wasn’t so uncalled for… “I mean, uh. It’s just… real nice to have finally met you.” he sighs, shifting in his seat a bit.
Bokuto’s face seems to light up at that, and he nods. “It really is..!”
Maybe it’s just Kuroo imagining things, but if he looks hard enough, he can almost see a little pink in Bo’s cheeks, too.
“... Well, I’m glad I didn’t disappoint then.”